Thoughts on the past and present class character of China: A reply

Many on the left think that China is not a socialist state anymore or “at the very least it is no longer pursuing socialist goals.” Well, tell that to the Chinese. Go to the Chinese web and look at the plethora of neo-Maoist sites that propagandize for socialist values. These are allowed and encouraged by forces within the CCP, otherwise they wouldn't exist. Tell that to the Cuba Communist Party which views China as a fraternal country which they are beginning to emulate. China is busy building up its productive capacity and has unleashed market forces to do so. Deng Xiaoping clearly stated what the Chinese strategy to build the foundations for socialism was 30 years ago and China has not deviated from that path. The project to build a modern, industrialized country that will serve as a springboard for the comprehensive development of socialism is not a one year, one decade thing, it may actually take a century. By 2050 one hundred years after the establishment of the PRC I think a lot of naive leftists will be eating a lot of crow.

Read the statements issued at the 18th Party Congress and contained within the 12th Five-Year Plan. The goal of building socialism is central. But the Chinese are very cognizant of the fact that in order to engage in the long-term program of building socialism a strong foundation has to be laid. And as good Leninists they realize that in the age of imperialism and monopoly capitalism this can only be done by using capitalist techniques domestically and integrating into the capitalist economy globally by accepting and encouraging foreign investment and manufacturing in China. But these are temporary expedients (and temporary means decades not years) constrained by the Chinese socialist system led by the CCP which frames and implements five-year plans and other policies that outline the contours of industrial and social development. The commanding heights of the economy are state controlled with State Owned Enterprises still holding sway while much of the private sector is heavily influenced by state initiated projects and a web of economic ties. You may scoff at all this as “state capitalism” or some-such, but Lenin understood that socialism in its initial stage of development in the Soviet Union amounted to state capitalism combined with Soviet power.

As Lenin stated, “State capitalism, which is one of the principal aspects of the New Economic Policy, is, under Soviet power, a form of capitalism that is deliberately permitted and restricted by the working class. Our state capitalism differs essentially from the state capitalism in countries that have bourgeois governments in that the state with us is represented not by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat, who has succeeded in winning the full confidence of the peasantry. Unfortunately, the introduction of state capitalism with us is not proceeding as quickly as we would like it. For example, so far we have not had a single important concession, and without foreign capital to help develop our economy, the latter’s quick rehabilitation is inconceivable.” Sounds a lot like the China of today to me, and China was coming from a far lower state of economic development than Russia.

But you say, the CCP is not a proletarian Party it is a bureaucratic Party controlled by a new bourgeoisie. Hogwash. It is an alliance of the proletariat, the new peasantry, the national bourgeoisie, and the new intelligentsia and new middle class. The key is that Marxist-Leninist ideology is in command directing the development of the economy and society as a whole. There is a lot going on behind the scenes but, if you can read and understand Chinese it is all readily available and there are many sources that discuss all these issue from the left, right and center. There are leftist neo-Maoists, centrist communists, and rightist neo-liberals all with very different perspectives and prescriptions for China's development.

There is intense class struggle in the CCP. And intense class struggle in Chinese society as a whole. This is a very good thing and shows the dynamism and vibrancy of China. There are classes and class struggles in China. That is how it should and must be for history to move forward. There has been no-counter revolution. The Revolution is unfolding on a daily basis. For those who can not see or understand this I say you are a phoney Marxist, a book worshiping Marxist who doesn't know the first thing about understanding the organic and dynamic process of social and economic formation

A little historical review. After the Revolution Mao wanted to achieve a modus vivendi with the US but was rebuked. He then realized he had to lean to one side and embraced an alliance with the USSR which he and other Chinese communists held with deep suspicion. Put there was no choice and China was obliged to follow the Soviet model or be totally isolated. China in 1949 was not a capitalist country. It was a semi-feudal, semi-colonial country that had just gone through decades of civil strife and Japanese aggression and occupation and a century of Western colonialism. China's percentage of world GDP had fallen from about 30% in 1790 to under 5% in 1949. You could never build socialism in one country based on the low level of production in China in 1949. What resource did China have? People. Mao was able to mobilize the people to an unprecedented degree to rehabilitate China and establish a basis for further growth and development. This had precedents in Chinese history and had been done coercively at the beginning of every major dynasty. Mao did it by rallying the nation. He initiated what can be called “war communism” if you like because it required a massive, co-ordinated effort conducted on a military scale with military tactics, hence the Great Leap Forward and the People's Communes. It was a necessary expedient given the material conditions China faced as a nation state. But it could only be temporary, the material conditions in the countryside would not allow it to continue. The majority of the CCP leadership realized that there had to be a transition to a phase of state capitalism that would unleash China's latent forces of production in order to build and develop the means of production. This could only be done as Lenin understood by foreign investment. As Lenin clearly stated, “without foreign capital to help develop our economy, the latter’s quick rehabilitation is inconceivable.” China under Deng took this admonition to heart.

But Mao resisted. He was an idealist at heart and wanted to realize socialism and communism in his lifetime, hence the mistaken attempt to adhere to the socialist road taken during the GPCR. The policies pursued while “socialist” were way too premature and unsustainable. Western imperialism would have eventually eaten China alive as it did the USSR and Eastern Europe a decade later. Capitalism was not restored in China. That is the major fallacy and fatal flaw in your whole analysis. Socialism was hanging on by a thread. Per capita income in 1980 was $300 per year. The country was economically stagnant. War communism had done wonders in stabilizing China and creating the material basis for China's rise, but it could not sustain and develop the economy in the face of imperialist aggression and attempts at destabilization and regime change. If the CCP could not deliver significant economic growth, opening up and modernization the PRC would surely have imploded during the great regression of the late 1980s and early 1990s. To not understand that is to be totally ignorant of the motive forces of history, is totally anti-Marxist and based on wishful thinking.

You say:
1) The Chinese Revolution from the very start was an anti-feudal, national liberation AND a socialist revolution at the same time. While many who did join the Communists were dedicated to constructing a socialist society, many others who joined the ranks of the revolution were motivated not by socialism per se, but were PRIMARILY motivated by modernizing China so that it could no longer be victimized by foreign imperialist powers. While it was convenient at the time to unite all who could be united, the mixed ideological character of many party cadre, going up to the highest ranks of the party, caused severe problems down the road. When the struggle was of a primarily anti-feudal and anti-imperialist character, such cadre were revolutionaries, however when it came time to push on to socialism and communism, such factions became counter-revolutionary.

The above points are well-taken but the conclusion is totally wrong. You don't build socialism in one generation. It is a long protracted period of socio-economic development in which classes and class struggles continue to exist. There is the capitalist road and the socialist road and one or the other will be emphasized as conditions warrant during the course of socio-economic development. It is a class conscious Communist Party that must direct and control this process for it to succeed. The last point you completely overlook and misunderstand.

2) After the Sino-Soviet split, China had only two long term options for survival in a hostile capitalist world and under a crippling blockade by the US- it either could spread Communist revolutions across the Third World to win itself an independent network of allies, or reach some sort of rapprochement with US imperialism. When the huge pro-China Indonesian Communist Party was literally massacred out of existence by the CIA-backed Suharto dictatorship in 1965-66, this had the same effect on China that the defeat of the Spartacist uprising in Germany 1919 had on the Soviet Union- the failure of the revolution to spread beyond its borders created a sense of defeatism with regards to the prospect of world revolution and aided the rise of a conservative bureaucracy at home.

We still live during the era of imperialism and US Imperialism is a very powerful enemy of the world's people. The prospect for world revolution in the 1970s and 80s was a chimera. Imperialism was slightly thwarted but came roaring back, particularly after the collapse of the USSR and the socialist bloc. China could not have gone it alone and instead followed the Leninist principle of integrating into the global market in order to develop the economic foundations for socialist construction. That is exactly what China did. China is pursuing a Leninist strategy to use capitalism and the capitalists to build socialism and defeat imperialism. Lenin is said to have said that, "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." The Chinese have gone one step further, the Chinese have sold the capitalists the rope with which they will hang themselves.

3) Mao made a serious error in not introducing struggle against the “capitalist-roaders” within the People’s Liberation Army due to concerns that China could not afford strife within the military when war with the Soviet Union was a looming possibility. Because of this the PLA played a key role in repressing the more revolutionary militias and Red Guard formations toward the end of the Cultural Revolution, first in 1969 and then in 1976(the first time under Mao’s orders). This made it easy for the revisionists(ie Deng Xiaoping and his allies) to clear the obstacles to seizing unchallenged control of the state.

If China had defeated the “capitalist roaders” it would have meant the eventual demise of the PRC. The “capitalist” and “socialist” roads must be in contention with one another for society to move forward. Otherwise you get stagnation., decay and eventual full blown capitalist restoration as in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

4) The restoration of capitalism in China came in stages- the first began with the arrest and trial of the Gang of Four after the death of Mao, the dismantling of the People’s Communes in the countryside, and the implementation of ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’ with the establishment of Special Economic Zones in certain coastal areas. However, this was still relatively limited in nature, akin to the New Economic Policy in the Soviet Union 1921-28. The second stage came in 1989, when mass workers protests against rampant corruption, increasing unemployment, economic inequality, and cuts to the social safety net were brutally crushed by the People’s Liberation Army(again a consequence of #3). By the early 1990′s one could say capitalism had more or less been restored to China. Working class resistance to neo-liberalism continues-there are tens of thousands of strikes in China every year.

Capitalism was not restored in China. What you are describing is the shift from “war communism” to “state capitalism” neither of which is “socialism.” Both are differing developmental strategies pursued at different times under different circumstances to build the foundations for the development of socialism. They were and are both appropriate for their times.

5) The reason the PRC has not been dismembered and the living standards of the Chinese working class have not taken an all out plunge like they have in the former USSR is because the ruling Communist Party has restricted the worst aspects of capitalism and kept a substantive regulated state sector of the economy in place, as well as maintaining some semblance of a social safety net in the cities(but not vast areas of the countryside). It does so not out of any benevolence but because of the realization that leaving the market entirely to its own devices will result in the loss of its own power. However, the rise of a large capitalist class with its own independent interests and now in key positions of influence within the Communist Party is a threat to even these restraints. IMO, in the next 10-15 years China will either go leftward back to socialism via a workers revolution with support of low level Communist Party cadre, or the Communist Party will be ousted by the capitalist class wanting to remove any remaining restraints on its interests. Thoughts?

The reason “why” China has developed as it has is precisely because it is a country in the primary stage of socialism with Chinese characteristics utilizing the market as a lever for economic development (i.e. market socialism). China's social safety net is not being dismantled but extended, environmental protections and food and drug safety standards are not being reduced but vastly expanded, alternative energies and sustainable growth are being promoted not curtailed, workers rights are being expanded not restricted, and on and on. China is developing in an organic and dynamic fashion and class struggle is the motor driving it forward.

The neo-liberals like Liu Xiaobo who hate socialism and hate the CCP want to dismantle the PRC, promote bourgeois democracy and the multi-party parliamentary system, they want to see the extension of bourgeois rights and the total and complete restoration of capitalism, the dismantling of the state owned sector, total privatization and total surrender of sovereignty to US Imperialism In a slip of his tongue Liu Xiaobo even said China needs 300 more years of colonialism to become a modern nation. Liu Xiaobo is what the restoration of capitalism would look like in China. Xi Jinping is what socialism looks like in China today.